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Poems
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KANDIL MOUNTAIN
They go up the mountain,
yank thyme from the rocks
to send to their aunts below.
It’s quiet there, among those
who’ve sold their shotguns
to the shadows. Rattlesnakes
populate the cracks,
the creeks where even you
can be a witness
to the path of a dead apostle
or a martyr’s final step.
Then the rainless thunder,
then the harvesters of beets
eight cliffs below
lift their canvas bundles
and seek the old gods,
the gods that proclaimed
war a nuisance and instead
lit bonfires in the valleys.
Two generations have lived
and died here, the fathers
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